When Mary-Clare awoke the next morning she heard Larry still moving
about overhead as if he had been doing it all night. He was opening
drawers; going to and fro between closet and bed; pausing, rustling
papers, and giving the impression, generally, that he was bent upon a
definite plan.
Noreen was sleeping deeply, one little arm stretched over her pillow
and toward her mother as if feeling for the dear presence. Somehow the
picture comforted Mary-Clare. She was strangely at peace. After her
bungling--and she knew she had bungled with Larry--she _had_ secured
safety for Noreen and herself. It was right: the other way would have
bent and cowed her and ended as so many women's lives ended. Larry
never could understand, but God could! Mary-Clare had a simple faith
and it helped her now.
While she lay thinking and looking at Noreen she became conscious of
Larry tiptoeing downstairs. She started up hoping to begin the new era
as right as might be. She wanted to get breakfast and start whatever
might follow as sanely as possible.
But Larry had gone so swiftly, once he reached the lower floor, that
only by running after him in her light apparel could she attract his
attention. He was out of the house and on the road toward the mines!
Then Mary-Clare, seized by one of those presentiments that often light
a dark moment, closed the door, shivering slightly, and went
upstairs.
The carefully prepared bedchamber was in great disorder. The
bedclothes were pulled from the bed and lay in a heap near by; towels,
the soiled linen that Larry had discarded for the fresh, that had
been placed in the bureau drawers, was rolled in a bundle and flung on
the hearth.
This aspect of the room did not surprise Mary-Clare. Larry generally
dropped what he was for the moment through with, but there was more
here than heedless carelessness. Drawers were pulled out and empty.
The closet was open and empty. There was a finality about the scene
that could not be misunderstood. Larry was gone in a definite and
sweeping manner.
Dazed and perplexed, Mary-Clare went to the closet and suddenly was
made aware, by the sight of an empty box upon the floor, that in her
preparation of the room she had left that box, containing the old
letters of her doctor, on a shelf and that now they had been taken
away!
What this loss signified could hardly be estimated at first. So long
had those letters been guide-posts and reinforcements, so long had
they comforted and soothed her like a touch or look of her old friend,
that now she raised the empty box with a sharp sense of pain. So might
she gaze at Noreen's empty crib had the child been taken from her.
Then, intuitively, Mary-Clare tried to be just, she thought that Larry
must have taken the letters because of old and now severed connections
They _were_ his letters, but----
Here Mary-Clare, also because she was just, considered the other
possible cause. Larry might use the letters against her in the days to
come. Show them to others to prove her falseness and ingratitude. This
possibility, however, was only transitory. What she had done was
inevitable, Mary-Clare knew that, and it seemed to her right--oh! _so_
right. There was only one real fact to face. Larry was gone; the
letters were gone.
Mary-Clare began to tremble. The cold room, all that had so deeply
moved her was shaking her nerves. Then she thought that in his hurry
Larry might have overturned the box--the letters might be on the shelf
still. Quickly she went into the closet and felt carefully every
corner. The letters were not there.
Then with white face and chattering teeth she turned and faced
Jan-an. The girl had come noiselessly to the house and found her way
to the room where she had heard sounds--she had seen Larry fleeing on
the lake road as she came over the fields from the Point.
"What's up?" she asked in her dull, even tones, while in her vacant
eyes the groping, tender look grew.
"Oh! Jan-an," Mary-Clare was off her guard, "the letters; my dear old
doctor's letters--they are gone; gone." Her feeling seemed out of all
proportion to the loss.
"Who took 'em?" And then Jan-an did one of those quick, intelligent
things that sometimes shamed sharper wits--she went to the hearth.
"There ain't been no fire," she muttered. "He ain't burned 'em. What
did he take them for?"
This question steadied Mary-Clare. "I'm not _sure_, Jan-an, that any
one has _taken_ the letters. You know how careless I am. I may have
put them somewhere else."
"If yer have there's no need fussing. I'll find 'em. I kin find
anything if yer give me time. I have ter get on the scent."
Mary-Clare gave a nervous laugh.
"Just old letters," she murmured, "but they meant, oh! they meant so
much. Come," she said suddenly, "come, I must dress and get
breakfast."
"I've et." Jan-an was gathering the bedclothes from the floor. She
selected the coverlid and brought it to Mary-Clare. "There, now," she
whispered, wrapping it about her, "you come along and get into bed
downstairs till I make breakfast. You need looking after more than
Noreen. God! what messes some folks can make by just living!"
Things were reduced to the commonplace in an hour.
The warmth of her bed, the sight of Noreen, the sound of Jan-an moving
about, all contributed to the state of mind that made her panic almost
laughable to Mary-Clare.
Things had happened too suddenly for her; events had become congested
in an environment that was antagonistic to change. A change had
undoubtedly come but it must be met bravely and faithfully.
The sun was flooding the big living-room when Mary-Clare, Noreen, and
Jan-an sat down to the meal Jan-an had prepared. There was a feeling
of safety prevailing at last. And then Jan-an, her elbows on the
table, her face resting in her cupped hands, remarked slowly as if
repeating a lesson:
"He's dead, Philander Sniff. Went terrible sudden after taking all
this time. I clean forgot--letters and doings. I can't think of more
than one thing at a time."
Mary-Clare set her cup down sharply while Noreen with one of those
whimsical turns of hers drawled in a sing-song:
"Old Philander Sniff, he died just like a whiff----"
"Noreen!" Mary-Clare stared at the child while Jan-an chuckled in a
rough, loose way as if her laugh were small stones rattling in her
throat.
"Well, Motherly, Philander was a cruel old man. Just being dead don't
make him anything different but--dead."
"Noreen, you must keep quiet. Jan-an, tell me about it."
Mary-Clare's voice commanded the situation. Jan-an's stony gurgle
ceased and she began relating what she had come to tell.
"I took his supper over to him, same as usual, and set it down on the
back steps, and when he opened the door I said, like I allas done,
'Peneluna says good-night,' and he took in the food and slammed the
door, same as usual."
"Old Philander Sniff----" began Noreen's chant as she slipped from her
chair intent upon a doll by the hearthside.
Mary-Clare took no notice of her but nodded to Jan-an.
"And then," the girl went on, "I went in to Peneluna and told her and
then we et and went to bed. Long about midnight, I guess, there was a
yell!" Jan-an lost her breath and paused, then rushed along: "He'd
raised his winder and after all the keeping still, he called for
Peneluna to come."
Mary-Clare visualized the dramatic scene that poor Jan-an was mumbling
monotonously.
"And she went! I just lay there scared stiff hearing things an' seeing
'em! Come morning, in walked Peneluna looking still and high and she
didn't say nothing till she'd gone and fetched those togs of hers,
black 'uns, you know, that Aunt Polly gave her long back. She put 'em
on, bonnet and veil an' everything. Then she took an old red rose out
of a box and pinned it on the front of her bonnet--God! but she did
look skeery--and then said to me awful careful, 'Trot on to
Mary-Clare, tell her to fotch the marriage service _and_ the funeral
one, both!' Jes' like that she said it. Both!"
"This is very strange," Mary-Clare said slowly and got up. "I'm going
to the Point, Jan-an, and you will take Noreen to the inn, like a good
girl. I'll call for her in the afternoon."
"Take both!" Jan-an was nodding her willingness to obey. And
Mary-Clare took her prayer-book with her.
Mary-Clare had the quiet Forest to herself apparently, for on the way
to the Point she met no one. On ahead she traced, she believed,
Larry's footprints, but when she turned on the trail to the Point,
they were not there.
All along her way Mary-Clare went over in her thought the story of
Philander Sniff and Peneluna. It was the romance and mystery of the
sordid Point.
Years before, when Mary-Clare was a little child, Philander had
drifted, from no one knew where, to the mines and the Point. He lived
in one of the ramshackle huts; gave promise of paying for it, did, in
fact, pay a few dollars to old Doctor Rivers, and then became a
squatter. He was injured at the mines and could do no more work and at
that juncture Peneluna had arrived upon the scene from the same
unknown quarter apparently whence Philander had hailed. She took the
empty cottage next Philander's and paid for it by service in Doctor
Rivers's home. She was clean, thrifty, and strangely silent. When
Philander first beheld her he was shaken, for a moment, out of his
glum silence. "God Almighty!" he confided to Twombly who had worked in
the mines with him and had looked after him in his illness; "yer can't
shake some women even when it's for their good."
That was all. Through the following years the two shacks became the
only clean and orderly ones on the Point. When Philander hobbled from
his quarters, Peneluna went in and scrubbed and scoured. After a time
she cooked for the old man and left the food on his back steps. He
took it in, ate it, and had the grace to wash the dishes before
setting them back.
"Some mightn't," poor Peneluna had said to Aunt Polly in defence of
Sniff.
As far as any one knew the crabbed old man never spoke to his devoted
neighbour, but she had never complained.
"I wonder what happened before they came here?" After all the years of
taking the strange condition for granted, it sprang into quickened
life. Mary-Clare was soon to know and it had a bearing upon her own
highly sensitive state.
She made her way to the far end of the Point, passing wide-eyed
children at play and curious women in doorways.
"Philander's dead!" The words were like an accompaniment, passing from
lip to lip. "An' she won't let a soul in." This was added.
"She will presently," Mary-Clare reassured them. "She'll need you all,
later."
There was a little plot of grass between Peneluna's shack and
Philander's and a few scraggy autumn flowers edged a well-worn path
from one back door to the other!
At Philander's front door Mary-Clare knocked and Peneluna responded at
once. She was dressed as Jan-an had described, and for a moment
Mary-Clare had difficulty in stifling her inclination to laugh.
The gaunt old woman was in the rusty black she had kept in readiness
for years; she wore gloves and bonnet; the long crêpe veil and the
absurd red rose wobbled dejectedly as Peneluna moved about.
"Come in, child, and shut the world out." Then, leading the way to an
inner room, "Have yer got _both_ services?"
"Yes, Peneluna." Then Mary-Clare started back.
She was in the presence of the dead. He lay rigid and carefully
prepared for burial on the narrow bed. He looked decent, at peace, and
with that unearthly dignity that death often offers as its first
gift.
Peneluna drew two chairs close to the bed; waved Mary-Clare
majestically to one and took the other herself. She was going to lay
her secrets before the one she had chosen--after that the shut-out
world might have its turn.
"I've sent word over to the Post Office," Peneluna began, "and they're
going to get folks, the doctor and minister and the rest. Before they
get here--" Peneluna paused--"before they get here I want that you
should act for the old doctor."
This was the one thing needed to rouse Mary-Clare.
"I'll do my best, Peneluna," she whispered, and clutched the
prayer-book.
"The ole doctor, he knew 'bout Philander and me. He said"--Peneluna
caught her breath--"he said once as how it was women like me that kept
men believing. He said I had a right to hold my tongue--he held
his'n."
Mary-Clare nodded. Not even she could ever estimate the secret load of
confessions her beloved foster-father bore and covered with his rare
smile.
"Mary-Clare, I want yer should read the marriage service over me and
him!" Peneluna gravely nodded to her silent dead. "I got this to say:
If Philander ain't too far on his journey, I guess he'll look back and
understand and then he can go on more cheerful-like and easy. Last
night he hadn't more than time to say a few things, but they cleared
everything, and if I'm his wife, he can trust me--a wife wouldn't harm
a dead husband when she _might_ the man who jilted her." The words
came through a hard, dry sob. Mary-Clare felt her eyes fill with hot
tears. She looked out through the one open window and felt the warm
autumn breeze against her cheek; a bit of sunlight slanted across the
room and lay brightly on the quiet man upon the bed. "Read on,
Mary-Clare, and then I can speak out."
Opening the book with stiff, cold fingers, Mary-Clare read softly,
brokenly, the solemn words.
At the close Peneluna stood up.
"Him and me, Mary-Clare," she said, "'fore God and you is husband and
wife." Then she removed the red rose from her bonnet, laid it upon
the folded wrinkled hands of the dead man and drew the sheet over
him.
Just then, outside the window, a bird flew past, peeped in, fluttered
away, singing.
"Seems like it might be the soul of Philander," Peneluna said--she was
crying as the old do, hardly realizing that they are crying. Her tears
fell unheeded and Mary-Clare was crying with her, but conscious of
every hurting tear.
"In honour bound, though it breaks the heart of me, I'm going to
speak, Mary-Clare, then his poor soul can rest in peace.
"The Methodist parson, what comes teetering 'round just so often,
always thought Philander was hell-bound, Mary-Clare; well, since there
ain't anyone but that parson as knows so much about hell, to send for,
I've sent for him and there's no knowing what he won't feel called
upon to say with Philander lying helpless for a text. So now, after I
tell you what must be told, I want that you should read the burial
service over Philander and then that parson can do his worst--my ears
will be deaf to him and Philander can't hear."
There was a heavy pause while Mary-Clare waited.
"Hell don't scare me nohow," Peneluna went on; "seems like the most
interesting folks is headed for it and I'll take good company every
time to what some church folks hands out. And, too, hell can't be half
bad if you have them you love with you. So the parson can do his
worst. Philander and me won't mind now.
"Back of the time we came here"--Peneluna was picking her words as a
child does its blocks, carefully in order to form the right word--"me
and Philander was promised."
Drifting about in Mary-Clare's thought a scrap of old scandal stirred,
but it had little to feed on and passed.
"Then a woman got mixed up 'twixt him and me. In her young days she'd
been French and you know yer can't get away from what's born in the
blood, and the Frenchiness was terrible onsettling. Philander was
side-twisted. Yer see, Mary-Clare, when a man ain't had nothing but
work and working folks in his life, a creature that laughs and dances
and sings gets like whiskey in the head, and Philander didn't
rightfully know what he was about."
Peneluna drew the end of her crêpe veil up and wiped her eyes.
"They went off together, him and the furriner. Least, the furriner
took him off, and the next thing I heard she'd taken to her heels and
Philander drifted here to the mines. I knew he needed me more than
ever--he was a dreadful creature about doing for himself, not eating
at Christian hours, just waiting till he keeled over from emptiness,
so I came logging along after him and--stayed. He was considerable
upset when he saw me and he never got to, what you might say, speaking
to me, but he was near and he ate the food I left on his steps and he
washed the plates and cups and that meant a lot to Philander. If I'd
been his proper wife he wouldn't have washed 'em. Men don't when they
get used to a woman.
"And then"--here Peneluna caught her breath--"then last night he
called from his winder and I came. He said, holding my hand like it
was the last thing left for him to hold: 'I didn't think I had a right
to you, Pen'--he used to call me Pen--'after what I did. And I've just
paid for my evil-doing up to the end, not taking comfort and
forgiveness--just paying!' I never let on, Mary-Clare, how I'd paid,
too. Men folks are blind-spotted, we've got to take 'em as they are.
Philander thought he had worked out his soul's salvation while he was
starving me, soul and body, but I never let on and he died smiling and
saying, 'The food was terrible staying, Pen, terrible staying.'"
Mary-Clare could see mistily the long, rigid figure on the bed, her
eyes ached with unshed tears; her heart throbbed like a heavy pain.
Here was something she had never understood; a thing so real and
strong that no earthly touch could kill it. What was it?
But Peneluna was talking on, her poor old face twitching.
"And now, Mary-Clare, him and me is man and wife before God and you.
You are terrible understanding, child. With all the fol-de-rol the old
doctor laid on yer, he laid his own spirit of knowing things on yer,
too. Suffering learns folks the understanding power. I reckon the old
doctor had had his share 'fore he came to the Forest--but how you got
to knowing things, child, and being tender and patient, 'stead of hot
and full of hate, I don't know! Now read, soft and low, so only us
three can hear--the last service."
Solemnly, with sweet intonations, Mary-Clare read on and on. Again the
bird came to the window ledge, looked in, and then flew off singing
jubilantly. Peneluna smiled a fleeting wintry smile and closed her
eyes; she seemed to be following the bird--or was it old Philander's
soul?
When the service came to an end, Peneluna arose and with grave dignity
walked from the room, Mary-Clare following.
"Now the Pointers can have their way 'cording to rule, Mary-Clare,"
she whispered, "but you and me understand, child. And listen to this,
I ain't much of a muchness, but come thick or thin, Mary-Clare, I'll
do my first and last for you 'cause of the secret lying 'twixt us."
Then Mary-Clare asked the question that was hurting her with its
weight.
"Peneluna, was it love, the thing that made you glad, through it all,
just to wait?"
"I don't rightly know, Mary-Clare. It was something too big for me to
call by name, but I just couldn't act different and kill it, not even
when her as once was French made me feel I oughter. I wouldn't darst
harm that feeling I had, child."
"And it paid?"
"I don't know. I only know I was glad, when he called last night, that
I was waiting."
Then Mary-Clare raised her face and kissed the old, troubled, fumbling
lips. The thing, too big for the woman, was too big for the girl; but
she knew, whatever it was, it must not be hurt.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked.
"God knows, Mary-Clare. The old doctor gave this place to Philander,
and he gave me mine, next door. I think, till I get my leadings, I'll
hold to this and see what the Lord wants me to do with my old shack.
I allas find someone waiting to share. Maybe Jan-an will grow to fit
in there in time. When she gets old and helpless she'll need some
place to crawl to and call her own. I don't know, but I'm a powerful
waiter and I'll keep an eye and ear open."
On the walk home Mary-Clare grew deeply thoughtful. The recent scene
took on enormous significance. Detached from the pitiful setting,
disassociated from the two forlorn creatures who were the actors in
the tragic story, there rose, like a bright and living flame, a
something that the girl's imagination caught and held.
That something was quite apart from laws and codes; it came; could not
be commanded. It was something that marriage could not give, nor death
kill. Something that could exist on the Point. Something that couldn't
be got out of one's heart, once it had entered in. What was it? It
wasn't duty or just living on. It was something too big to name. Why
was the wonder of it crowding all else out--after the long years?
Mary-Clare left the Point behind her. She entered the sweet
autumn-tinted woods beyond which lay her home. She hoped--oh!
yearningly she hoped--that Larry would not be there, not just yet. She
would go for Noreen; she would stay awhile with Aunt Polly and tell
her about what had just occurred--the service, but not the secret
thing.
Suddenly she stood still and her face shone in the dim woods. Just
ahead and around a curve, she heard Noreen's voice. But was it
Noreen's?
Often, in her wondering moments, Mary-Clare had pictured her little
girl as she longed for her to be--a glad, unthinking creature, such as
Mary-Clare herself had once been, a singing, laughing child. And now,
just out of sight, Noreen was singing.
There was a rich gurgle in the flute-like voice; it came floating
along.
"Oh! tell it again, please! I want to learn it for Motherly. It is
awfully funny--and make the funny face that goes with it--the
crinkly-up face."
"All right. Here goes!
"Up the airy mountain,
Down the rustly glen--
that's the way, Noreen, scuffle your feet in the leaves--
"We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men.
Wee folk, good folk
Trooping all together,
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather--
Here, you, Noreen, play fair; scuffle and keep step, you little
beggar!"
"But I may step on the wee men, the good men," again the rich
chuckle.
"No, you won't if you scuffle and then step high; they'll slip between
your feet."
Then came the tramp, tramp of the oncoming pair. Big feet, little
feet. Long strides and short hops.
So they came in view around the turn of the rough road--Northrup with
Noreen holding his hand and trying to keep step to the swinging words
of the old song.
And Northrup saw Mary-Clare, saw her with a slanting sunbeam on her
radiant face. The romance of Hunter's Point was in her soul, and the
wonder of her child's happiness. She stood and smiled that strange,
unforgettable smile of hers; the smile that had its birth in unshed
tears.
Northrup hurried toward her, taking in, as he came, her loveliness
that could not be detracted from by her mud-stained and rough
clothing. The feeling of knowing her was in his mind; she seemed
vividly familiar.
"Your little daughter got homesick, or mother-sick, Mrs. Rivers"--Northrup
took off his hat--"Aunt Polly gave me the privilege of bringing her to
you. We became friends from the moment we met. We've been making great
strides all day."
"Thank you, Mr.----"
"Northrup."
"Thank you, Mr. Northrup. You have made Noreen very happy--and she
does not make friends easily."
"But, Motherly," Noreen was flushed and eager. "_He_ isn't a friend.
Jan-an told me all about him. He's something the wild-wind brought.
You are, aren't you, Mr. Sir?"
Northrup laughed.
"Well, something like that," he admitted. "May I walk along with you,
Mrs. Rivers? Unless I go around the lake, I must turn back."
And so they walked on, Noreen darting here and there quite unlike her
staid little self, and they talked of many things--neither could have
told after just what they talked about. The conversation was like a
stream carrying them along to a definite point ordained for them to
reach, somewhere, some time, on beyond.
"How on earth could she manage to be what she is?" pondered Northrup.
"She's read and thought to some purpose."
"What does he mean by being here?" pondered Mary-Clare. "This isn't
just a happening."
But they chatted pleasantly while they pondered.
When they came near to the yellow house, Noreen, who was ahead, came
running back. All the joyousness had fled from her face. She looked
heavy-eyed and dull.
"She's tired," murmured Mary-Clare, but she knew that that was not
what ailed Noreen.
And then she looked toward her house. Larry stood in the doorway,
smoking and smiling.
"Will you come and meet my husband?" she asked of Northrup.
"I'll put off the pleasure, if you'll excuse me, Mrs. Rivers. I have
learned that one cannot tamper with Aunt Polly's raised biscuits. It's
late, but may I call to-morrow?" Northrup stood bareheaded while he
spoke.
Mary-Clare nodded. She was mutely thankful when he strode on ahead and
toward the lake.
It was while they were eating their evening meal that Larry remarked
casually:
"So that's the Northrup fellow, is it?" Mary-Clare flushed and had a
sensation of being lassoed by an invisible hand.
"Yes. He is staying at the inn--I sent Noreen there this morning while
I went over to the Point; he was bringing her home."
"He seemed to know that you weren't home."
"Children come in handy," Larry smiled pleasantly. "More potato,
Mary-Clare?"
"No." Then, almost defiantly: "Larry, Mr. Northrup asked his way to
the inn the day he was travelling through. I have never spoken to him
since, until to-day. When he found the house empty this afternoon, he
naturally----"
"Why the explanation?" Larry looked blank and again Mary-Clare
flushed.
"I felt one was needed."
"I can't see why. By the way, Mary-Clare, those squatters at the Point
are going to get a rough deal. Either they're going to pay regular, or
be kicked out. I tell you when Tim Maclin sets his jaw, there is going
to be something doing."
This was unfortunate, but Larry was ill at ease.
"Maclin doesn't own the Point, Larry."
"You better listen to Maclin and not Peter Heathcote." Larry retraced
his steps. His doubt of Northrup had led him astray.
Mary-Clare gave him a startled look.
"Maclin's a brute," she said quietly. "I prefer to listen to my
friends."
"Maclin's our friend. Yours and mine. You'll learn that some day."
"I doubt it, Larry, but he's your employer and I do not forget that."
"I wouldn't. And you're going to change your mind some fine day, my
girl, about a lot of things."
"Perhaps."
"I'm sleeping outside, Mary-Clare." Larry rose lazily. "I just dropped
in to--to call." He laughed unpleasantly.
"I'm sorry, Larry, that you feel as you do."
"Like hell you are!" The words were barely audible. "I'm going to give
you a free hand, Mary-Clare, but I'm going to let folks see your game.
That's square enough."
"All right, Larry." Mary-Clare's eyes flickered. Then: "Why did you
take those letters?"
Larry looked blankly at her.
"I haven't taken any letters. What you hoaxing up?" He waited a moment
but when Mary-Clare made no reply he stalked from the house angrily
and into the night.